Snowpack news: Weekend storm bumps the South Platte Basin to 63% of avg, still tracking the 2002 line #codrought #cowx

According to figures from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow network, in the 48-hour period ended at 7 a.m. Monday, 3.8 inches of snow fell in one area of Bailey. During the same time period, 5.5 inches of new snow fell in an area of Fairplay, and 3 inches of new snow fell in an area of Lake George. The CoCoRAHs figures show that the Conifer area in Jefferson County got hit harder than Park County, receiving 12.4 inches of new snow in the 48-hour period ended at 7 a.m. on Feb. 25. During that period of time, an area near Pine in Jefferson County received 7.8 inches of new snow…

According to CoCoRAHs figures, in the five-day period ended at 7 a.m. on Feb. 25, 7.8 inches of new snow fell in the KZ Ranch subdivision, northwest of downtown Bailey. The CoCORAHs figures show that during that five day period from Feb. 21 through Feb. 25, new snow was recorded every day. During that same five-day time period, one area of Fairplay recorded 12.2 inches of new snow. During the same five-day period, one area of Lake George in southeastern Park County, recorded 7.8 inches of new snow…

From the five days from Feb. 21 to Feb. 25, one area of Confier got 17.8 inches of new snow. During the same period of time, an area of Pine received 10.8 inches of new snow.

The weekend’s snowstorm wasn’t a drought-buster but every little bit helps. Colorado Springs is already planning water restrictions this summer. Pueblo doesn’t have any mandatory restrictions yet. For now, Pueblo’s Board of Water Works is urging people to conserve the amount of water they use. Every drop of moisture helps increase the amount of water stored in Pueblo’s reservoirs. But with little snowfall in Pueblo so far this year, there’s not much snowpack in the mountains. “We’re at around the 60 percent of our snowpack for the year and that’s where most of our drinking water comes from is that water that’s stored by mother nature in the snowpack during the wintertime,” said Paul Fanning of Pueblo’s Board of Water Works…

As of January, Pueblo’s Board of Water Works had nearly 28,000 acre feet of water in storage- that’s down by 35 percent from what it had during that time last year. For now, Fanning says people in Pueblo are encouraged to conserve water as they wait to see how much more moisture is in store for the Steel City. Fanning says if this drought continues for another full season, there could be water restrictions in Pueblo by next year.

The program provides Northern Colorado water users with another method to acquire Colorado-Big Thompson Project water on a seasonal lease basis. Based on RPP rules, Northern Water’s Board of Directors may allocate water from the Regional Pool only when C-BT Project storage reserves exceed 200,000 acre feet on November 15 of the same water year. Reserves on November 15, 2012 fell about 85,000 acre feet short of this amount.

This policy is intended to help maintain supplies in C-BT storage for future years. This is the first year reserves have not been high enough for pool allocations since the program’s first allocations in 2010.